


take my hand through the flames

by amosanguis



Category: DC Extended Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Brief Gore, Character Study, Feelings, GQ Leans Into Being A Monster Fucker, M/M, Mild Porn with Explicit Feelings, Protective Killer Croc, Protectiveness, mild PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Croc yanks GQ in, curls around him, protects him from the worst of the blast. (It becomes something of a habit.)
Relationships: GQ Edwards/Waylon Jones
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	take my hand through the flames

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Sucker For Pain” by Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, and Imagine Dragons ft. Logic, Ty Dolla $ign, and X Ambassadors
> 
> Has only been given a cursory edit, please forgive any mistakes or kindly point them out.

-z-

Croc yanks GQ in, curls around him, protects him from the worst of the blast.

-

GQ chokes down a sob, curls into Croc’s bulk, let’s cool reptilian skin chase away the nightmares. He’s thankful Flag didn’t take Croc back to Belle Reve - though, from the look on Croc’s face, it doesn’t look like anyone could’ve pried Croc from GQ’s side at whatever hospital they’ve commandeered. 

And, maybe, that’s where this starts. Or maybe it starts with a joke.

A joke made, later, about becoming friends with the monster under his bed - because there’s two beds in here and a little pool (one of the long inflatable ones Croc has to be careful not to puncture), but Croc never uses his bed. He instead pulls the pool over next to GQ’s bed, water sloshing over its sides, and it’s their favorite thing - GQ in his bed and Croc in his pool - and they watch each other or watch the tv or watch the doctors when they come in to fuss with GQ’s machines and tubes and wires.

So GQ makes his joke and Croc rumbles out a laugh, a real one even, and then GQ stops, asks if Croc wants to be called _Jones_ instead.

And maybe it started with Croc holding him through the nightmares or maybe it started with GQ’s dumb joke, but it definitely became something when Croc stands up from his pool, his hands grabbing both of the bed’s railings so he was bracketing GQ, dripping water onto GQ’s face and hospital gown.

“My name’s Croc,” he says and GQ shudders because Croc’s saying it like a threat and like a promise and GQ can’t turn away.

-

They say Croc shouldn’t be here, that he needs to be locked away.

GQ tightens his grip on Croc and looks them in the eye and dares them to try it.

They say that GQ shouldn’t be here, that there’s no way he should’ve survived the blast.

Croc curls his lip and positions himself between GQ and the door and tells them to mind their own.

-x-

GQ is finally disconnected from the machines and the tubes and the wires, and the door is barely closed behind the doctors before Croc is standing behind him, his breath ghosting down the back of GQ’s neck. 

They know there’s cameras.

They know and they don’t care.

-

Croc snarls and GQ grins, settling on his knees between Croc’s thighs and licking his lips.

“And they call me the cannibal,” Croc growls as GQ, in one fluid motion, takes Croc’s dick in hand and then goes down, hungry.

-

There’s something to be said, GQ thinks, about having Croc’s hands on him - hands that can snap bones like twigs; about having Croc’s teeth at his neck - teeth designed for shredding flesh not softly marking it up, never breaking skin.

When he’s with GQ, Croc becomes restrained - he’s pulled punches without the insult, he’s careful without thinking the human beneath him will shatter. Croc is power made almost delicate. He’s strength held back for the love of a precious thing. It’s a heady drug, GQ thinks, seeing and feeling the physical manifestation of being treasured and valued like this.

-x-

GQ’s released from the hospital and returns to training, tries not to think about how empty the world seems to be without Croc’s bulk to fill it. And after so long inside four defined walls, GQ finds it difficult to adjust to the wide openness of the world.

But he has a job to do and he needs to get back to it. So he forces everything away and pulls on his gear and goes for a swim.

He swims until his muscles burn. Until his lungs burn. Until his mind is empty. Then he swims some more.

-

He passes his physical tests with flying colors and is cleared to return to the Squad. He tells Croc himself and the man and monster grins, wide and feral, the tapetum of his eyes glinting against the lights outside his cell.

-

GQ is assigned a new team of SEALs - Wayne, Frank, Day, and Byrd - to lead and he immediately sets about breaking them in by putting them in the water with Croc. 

Surprisingly, it goes well and GQ suspects that that’s Flag’s doing - he’d gotten GQ and Croc men that weren’t just competent, but men who didn’t flinch when Croc moved too quickly, who didn’t look at them sideways when GQ, at the end of a training dive, collapses next to Croc on the boat and lets himself fall sideways into Croc’s lap, eyes closing against the setting sun; who didn’t mutter or shift when Croc rests a hand on GQ’s chest, just over his heart, a look of incredible fondness that can only be made out if they knew to look for it.

-

GQ rides Croc in the pool in Croc’s cell, their foreheads touching, breathing each other’s air, until Croc’s head flicks and he bites down (always just on the right side painful-but-not-damaging) into the meat of GQ’s shoulder as they climax together.

GQ shivers as Croc licks at the bite.

-

A Belle Reve guard makes a comment about bestiality, about fucking monsters.

A half-second later, he’s screaming on the ground, clutching at what remained of his knee.

Byrd, one of the new SEALs, stands there, smoking rifle in hand, as he looks GQ in the eye and says, “My apologies, sir, it was a misfire.”

“Of course,” GQ says, tone sympathetic and understanding, “these things happen.”

Croc rumbles a laugh and Flag sighs and the rest of the Squad whoops, reveling in the blood spilled.

-x-

Waller looks at him, level, says, “I don’t care what you do together. Just remember that if you try to put a ring on it, you’ll be moving into Belle Reve with him - he won’t be moving out.”

GQ knows better than to give her any other answer aside from a polite, “Acknowledged, ma’am.”

-

GQ looks down at the hole in his gut and then he looks back up at Croc.

“We need to get married before I die,” he says, “you can use my life insurance to get a better tv. Maybe some snacks.”

Croc snarls at him, not finding anything funny about the way GQ’s blood is flowing out of him like a river breaking through a levee and with that same helpless feeling.

Ten perfect missions between them, six more with the Squad, and GQ can’t believe it’s going to end like this. Guesses it was going to happen sooner than later. Knows that this was all borrowed time anyway and that he never should’ve made it out of those Midway tunnels--

(Croc yanks him in, curls around him, protects him from the worst of the blast.)

\--and that all this, starting from the beginning--

(GQ chokes down a sob, curls into Croc’s bulk, let’s cool reptilian skin chase away the nightmares.)

\--it never should’ve been allowed to happen.

Reality was simply catching up to them and righting a wrong.

“Never letting you get shot again,” Croc snarls, “you’re too fucking dramatic.”

GQ shrugs his shoulders as best he can - he hadn’t been aware he’d said anything aloud - before he closes his eyes, because he’s tired and cold and Croc can handle the rest of the mission.

-

GQ’s shocked - _shocked_ \- when it happens: when he opens his eyes.

-

“I wasn’t lying,” GQ says the very second Flag escorts Croc into his room (their room, the same one from before; it’s almost like coming home), “we need to get married before I die. You could use the money, right?”

Flag rolls his eyes and Croc snarls (again).

“I don’t want your death money,” Croc rumbles, real annoyance flashing through his eyes.

“Dude, it’s called ‘life--”

Croc doesn’t let him finish, darting to GQ’s bed and gripping the railing on both sides so that he _looms_ over GQ. (Hey, that’s familiar.)

“I. Don’t. Want. It.” Croc says. “I want _you_ and I want you _alive_.”

“Not saying you can’t have that, too,” GQ says, his voice softer than he means it to be, and, actually, all of this is more than he means it to be. But, as he puts his hand to Croc’s cheek, pulls Croc in just a little bit closer so their foreheads touch, GQ thinks (knows, is the better word, knows with every fiber of his being, he _knows)_ he can deal with it.

Croc rumbles at him, the sound coming from deep in his chest, a not-growl sound that means Croc understands what GQ is saying - really saying.

-

Harley returns to the team just long enough to officiate.

“You know you could’ve just changed your will, right?” she says, after the ceremony. “Your power of attorney? You didn’t have to do all this?”

GQ had _not_ thought of that and, apparently, neither had Croc, judging by the way they look at each other.

Croc is the first to shrug and GQ does the same.

-

They don’t move in - obviously they can’t. 

They don’t even exchange rings because a) any jewelry would be confiscated, and b) wearing a ring during a mission is a good way to get noticed in a bad way, even if they both spent most of their missions under water. 

Besides, GQ thinks, feeling claws holding his legs open and feeling Croc’s tongue working him open, they weren’t normal - not their relationship, not their day job, not them themselves - and nothing could make GQ want to change that. 

So he grinds down on Croc’s face, gasps at the dangerous scrape of teeth on his sensitive skin, and lets his thoughts slip away from him. Focusing instead on that tongue inside him, impossibly long, and that pair of eyes that never leave GQ’s face, watching him, watching over him, always.

-z-

End.


End file.
